Moving to London - Rent - what can I afford?

Macey100

Hi all,

I'm a recent graduate and am stuck in a low paid increadibly depressing job. I'm trying to plan a move to london in a couple of months as my friend has a good job starting there. I am applying for jobs all over, usually around the £20,000 mark (although my friend is on much higher).

I was wondering if anybody can help me on how much I can afford in rent. Will I be able to afford a flat in London (house share with others fine) in somewhere like London Bridge/Borough area if I'm earning £17-£18,000? I have a full student loan but no other depts and savings of a couple of grand. I need help as everybody else I know there seems to earn alot more and says things like "you cannot survive on less than 22,000" . . . but I can't get a job.

any advice is greatly apreciated xx

lvm

My friends have recently moved to London and with the exception of their rent, they say all are living costs seem the same as when they lived in Edinburgh.

I would have a look on Gumtree on the "Rooms offered" section and if you see any you like, contact them asking about council tax and bills.

Food won't make much of a difference however, from someone who has taken her fair few trips down to London, the hard bit will be about how much socialising you're going to do. I found a big difference in eating and drinking in London, particularly with service charges.

Although you have a couple of grand in savings, it would be easy to spend this in London - I definitely wouldn't consider moving without a job.

If you can afford to go down on £17-18k, just go for it - it's a lot easier to look for a job in a city you're living in.

Good luck x

Sharon87

I moved to London after uni without a job, 2 grand in savings, that went pretty quickly even though I was on JSA for a while and doing temp jobs. Eventually got a crap paid job in a cinema, but I survived (just). Now I earn more and can afford to do things in London

I would also say it depends on what area you want to live in. If you want a nice place and location £500-£600 a month minimum in a house share, or it can go as low as £350 for room shares in poor areas. (hate that idea myself, house share fine, but my bedroom is my bedroom lol). East London tends to be cheaper but have a lot more rougher places than say The North and West of London. I live in the NW postcode and it's nice round here, it's getting more expensive now.

Bare in mind if you have no job and house share then claim housing benefit there have been cuts so the amount is less than usual. But it is easier to find a job in London when you live here.

Good luck!

BitterAndTwisted

Stay where you are until you've got several grand saved up unless you have a job to come to when you get here. As an absolute minimum you will have to find the equivalent of one month's rent as deposit and one month's rent in advance and that could be a hefty chunk of your savings if you don't find work right away. You should expect your rent to be about one third of your take-home pay. In some pars of London it could be up to a half.

Annisele

Macey100 wrote: »

Will I be able to afford a flat in London (house share with others fine) in somewhere like London Bridge/Borough area if I'm earning £17-£18,000?

£17k a year works out at something like £1,160 per month after tax.

Gumtree suggests you could find a houseshare pretty easily for around half of your £1,160 (no promises on it being a nice place, and watch out for scammers). You'd then need to pay your share of the bills, council tax, and very likely £100 a month or so for travel.

So, I think it's probably possible to live in London on £17k a year, but you'll be watching every penny.

Citizens UK reckons that £8.30 per hour is a living wage in London. I don't know how it calculates its figures, but your £17k is probably around there depending on how many hours they assume you work.

neverdespairgirl

I'd have thought that London on £17k a year was quite tight - totally do-able, of course, but maybe not that much fun.

Macey100

Thanks for the replies they have been really usefull. My main reason for moving is to be close to friends (and hopefully to find a better job), however most of the people I know there are on salaries of 27K+. I'm pretty miserable where I am (in rainy north wales) and want to move to the "big city" for friends nightlife etc but if I can't afford to go out I supose there isnt much point.

after the responses above I definately wouldnt move before I found a fairly decent job, although as people have mentioned it would be easier to get a job once I'm there. perhaps try and find a job for 17K then I could look for something paying higher?

For anybody living in london (or with friends/family there) I would really appreciate any breakdown on figures: rent, bills etc.

xxx

princeofpounds

Hi,

your wage will be borderline for living in London. Yes food is about the same, but rent is much higher and so will socialising be (there is a lot of great free stuff in London but a pint doesn't come cheap), and quite likely council tax too.

18k is a take home of around 14k. You could probably spend up to about 50% of net salary in rent (many people claim 33% is ideal, but they live in the past as as far as young people working in London go). This is £580pcm. The very cheapest 2 beds in Bermondsey (for your budget you are going to be more bermondsey than bridge or borough to be honest) are around 1000pcm. So between the two of you it's just about practical but you will need to budget hard, unless you go for Polish-style HMO living.

For instance, you will probably want to get an annual travelcard. You can get by on buses or bike for less but I'm assuming you are normal in this respect. That's a grand right there.

However... I would encourage you not just to look at the immediate future alone. Depending on your career path a move might give you greater options and so lead to a better long term situation.

PM me if you want any more specific info, I know the area well.

FTBFun

I moved to London with a job paying £19k (although this was 6 years ago), and paid approx £530 p/m plus bills to share in a nice flat in Belsize Park.

You could definitely get cheaper than this though - my last flatshare before I bought I was paying £478 p/m plus bills for the largest room in a 4 bed flat in Kilburn, near transport (2x night buses!) - there were rooms in my flat even cheaper than that (one was £430 I think). This was in zone 2 so still easy to get into town.

Rent, utility bills, and council tax are the biggest expenses. Think I was paying approx £70 p/m for the last two, including broadband, although Camden is expensive for council tax so you could probably shave a bit off there in another borough.

Transport: assuming you'll use public transport (the tube really) a zone 1-2 travelcard is £100ish a month, obviously if you cycle or get a bus it'll be cheaper.

The important thing is to secure a job first - as you'll then be able to work where's the best place to live to cut down on your commute, as well as having the ability to pay the rent of course!

t0rt0ise

I think that you should just do what you want to. Once you have a partner and children, you'll be stopped from doing anything exciting and spontaneous and my view is that while you can you should just do it. So what if you live in a room that isn't really great, and that you have to live off beans on toast for a while. Without giving it a go you will never know.

I did similar. Slightly different circumstances but I gave up my job to move to London and I'm very glad I took the risk. I live in WC1 and I love it.

silverchair

South East London may be cheaper. A couple of years ago I rented a one bed flat for £600 (not inc council tax & bills) close to the train station. Not a particularly lovely area, but if you're young & its temporary for you then that might be an option. The closer you are to places like London Bridge the more expensive it is to live there. However, as you are willing to go down the flatshare route it will be cheaper. If you are on 17,000 you will need to seriously budget & prob wont be able to do that much socialising in clubs & pubs.

Good Luck!